Luck in Hiring

Happy March! Spring is upon us! With March also comes St. Patrick’s Day. How
often have you heard about the “luck o’ the Irish” at this time? This made me
think about the need for luck in hiring. Strong companies rely on solid employees
if they want to provide high-quality service to clientele as well as to spark
new ideas and bring diversity to the table. However, weaker employees can not
only prevent such success, but can actually cause harm to the process. I have
heard business owners and managers lament such situations: “Everything would be
perfect if I didn’t have to deal with employees!” How can this situation
emerge? What is the difference between hiring employees that create life for
the company over those that drag the company down? The answer is often this:
companies find themselves in a perceived rush to bring in help that they fail
to assess whether a potential employee really is the best fit. The result: they
hire people who do not truly belong. Talk about some bad luck!

A bad hire not only
disrupts the positive flow of the company, but it can be incredibly expensive.
I have seen many statistics tossed around about just how expensive a bad hire
can be. For instance, I have seen that it can cost a company three times the
annualized salary of that person. Think about the implications of a bad hire:
you pay for their base salary, computer expenses, office supplies, and
training—not to mention the loss of productivity that comes with bringing in
any new person. And if that new person ends up being a bad hire, other team
members’ productivity can suffer. You can imagine how expensive a bad hire can
be. And this is not to mention that if they do not fit, you may have to replace
them sooner than you would a good hire—and then you have to repeat this whole
expensive process.

The question you are
likely wondering, then, is: How can I increase my chances of making a good
hire? ProRecruiters provides two options. First, we have created the
contract-to-hire option. This option will cost money upfront, as you pay our
firm a markup, but the total cost is much less than the estimated cost of a bad
hire. With this option, you get to take the employee for a “test drive.” The
employee may look like a great fit on paper, but perhaps they do not fit with
the culture of your company (seventy-five percent of all terminations are
behavior-based). In this option, realizing that the employee does not fit will
not cost you what it would if you hired outright.

The second option is
our ARRIVAL screening service. Since we deal with small- and mid-sized
companies, we are fully aware that such companies are not in the position to
move through two or three interviews with each applicant. For a cost between
$400 and $550, we do the screening for you. You will receive an unbiased scorecard
along with the equivalent of a hiring team to help you discern whether an
employee is the right fit. Again, you may seem to pay more upfront than if you
were simply to do a direct hire, but in the long run, you can save literally
thousands of dollars—not to mention the effects a bad hire has on company
emotion and ethos.

As we close out the
first quarter of 2017 and move into the second quarter, I encourage you to
consider these two options if you are considering expanding your team. Your
company’s success hinges on whether you build a solid team at the foundation. You
need people on your team, but not just any person will do. You need the right
people. ProRecruiters wants to help you increase your “luck” in hiring.